Alexander J. Chou, MD

About Me

I am a pediatric oncologist who specializes in the treatment of children and young adults with sarcomas and other solid tumors. At Memorial Sloan Kettering, we have a strong history in the treatment of sarcomas, having done pioneering work that has led to the therapies used to care for patients today.

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There is still a lot we don’t know about sarcomas, and research is necessary to make progress. My research focuses on new strategies for the treatment of relapsed pediatric sarcomas (those that have returned despite prior treatment). We are evaluating new drugs and new ways to deliver anticancer drugs, such as inhaled chemotherapy for sarcomas in the lung. In the laboratory, I have worked on deciphering the signaling pathways used by osteosarcoma cells in an effort to find new targets for therapy.

In addition to caring for patients and doing research, I teach fellows and residents. I am the Director for the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program, and I also oversee the training of pediatric residents who rotate through our service. In these roles, I design the educational curriculum for our trainees, and mentor and evaluate them. I enjoy the educational component of medicine; teaching the next generation of doctors makes us all better doctors and spurs collaboration.

While we’ve had enormous success in raising the survival rate among children with cancer, there is still a lot we don’t know and a lot to be discovered. I find the science behind pediatric cancers to be exciting, and I want to help support new efforts to help these children get better.

Pubmed is an online index of biomedical articles maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

Clinical Trials

Research is integral to our mission at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and clinical trials help us discover better forms of patient care and treatment. For you, this could mean access to a new therapy or therapy combination. Click to see a list of the trials I’m currently leading.

Insurance

Most major health insurers offer plans that include MSK as one of their in-network providers. If MSK is in-network, it means all our doctors are too. Medicaid and New York State Medicare also provide benefits for care at MSK.